See Your Beam As Never Before:

The Graphical User Interface (GUI) of BeamGage is new. Dockable and floatable windows plus concealable ribbon tool bars empowers the BeamGage user to make the most of a small laptop display or a large, multi-monitor desktop PC.

Dual or single monitor setup with beam displays on one and results on the other.(Note that results can be magnified large enough to see across the room).

Measure Your Beam As Never Before:

Ultracal: Essential, or no big deal?

If you want accurate beam measurements, you want Ultracal.

What is Ultracal?

Our patented, baseline correction algorithm helped establish the ISO 11146-3 standard for beam measurement accuracy. The problemswith cameras used in beam profile measurements are: a) The baseline, or zero, of the cameras will drift with time and temperature changes, and b) includerandom noise. Ultracal is the only beam profiler algorithm that sets the baseline to “zero”, and, in the center of the noise. (Competitiveproducts use other less sophisticated algorithms that perform a baseline subtraction, but truncate the noise below the “zero” of thebaseline. This leaves only a “positive” component, which adds a net value to all beam measurements).

Try the following on any other beam profiler product to see the inherent error if you don’t use Ultracal.

1.

Measure a beam with full intensity on the profiler camera.

2.

Insert a ND2 filter (100X attenuation) into the beam and measure it again.

3.

Compare the results.

4.

The Standard Deviation below is about 3%, which is phenomenal compared to the 100% or more of any beam profiler without Ultracal.

Adding the use of Automatic Aperture improves the accuracy to 1%. (The conditions of this measurement is a camera with a 50dB SNR.)

5.

You normally don’t make measurements at such a low intensity. But occasionally you may have a drop in intensity of your beam and don’t want to have to adjust the attenuation. Or, you may occasionally have a very small beam of only a few tens of pixels. In both these cases, Ultracal becomes essential in obtaining accurate measurements.

Beam Measurements and Statistics

BeamGage allows you to configure as many measurements as needed to support your work, and comes standard with over 55 separatemeasurement choices. To distinguish between calculations that are based on ISO standards and those that are not, a graphical ISO logo isdisplayed next to appropriate measurements. You can also choose to perform statistical calculations on any parameter in the list.

Small sample of possible measurements out of a list of 55

Sample of calculation results with statistics applied

And if BeamGage-Standard does not have the measurement you need the -Enterprise version permits the user to add-in custom calculations. User defined computations are treated just as the standard calculations. These custom results are displayed on the monitor, logged with results, and included on hard copy print-outs as if they were included in the original application.

Multiple Charting Options

You can create strip charts for stability observations on practically any of the calculations options available. Charts enable tracking of short or long term stability of your laser.

Beam intensity changed over 10db, making noise a significant factor in measurement stability.

Beam Pointing Stability

Open the Pointing Stability Window to collect centroid and peak data from the core system and display it graphically. View a chart recorder and statistical functions in one interface:

Easy to Use and Powerful

BeamGage is the only beam profiler on the market using modern Windows 7 navigation tools. The menu system of BeamGage is easy to learn and easy to use with most controls only one mouse click away. Some ribbon toolbar examples:

Some of the Beam Display options. (Display access options under the Tools tab on the left).

Some of the Beam Capture options.

BeamGage Main Display Screen

Pass / Fail with Password Protection for Production Testing

BeamGage allows the user to configure the displayed calculations; set-up the screen layout and password protect the configuration from any changes. This permits secure product testing as well as data collection for Statistical Process Control (SPC), all while assuring the validity of the data.

Failures (or successes) can be the impetus for additional actions including a TTL output signal or PC beep and the termination of further data acquisition.

Unique Features of BeamGage - Standard Power/Energy Calibration

Using the USB output from select Ophir power/energy meters, the BeamGage application will display measured power/energy values from the full range of Ophir thermopile, photodiode and pyroelectric sensors. Pulsed lasers can be synced up to 100Hz, or the frame rate of the triggered camera, whichever is less. This is the first time in the industry a laser power meter has been married to a laser beam profile system.

BeamGage is the only product to integrate profiling and power meter measurements

BeamMaker®; Numerical Beam Profile Generator

BeamGage contains a utility, BeamMaker, that can synthetically generate beam profile data by modeling either Laguerre, Hermite or donut laser beams in various modal configurations. BeamMaker permits the user to model a beam profile by specifying the mode, size, width, height, intensity, angle, and noise content. Once generated the user can then compare the theoretically derived measurements to measurements including experimental inaccuracies produced by the various measurement instruments and environmental test conditions. Users can now analyze expected results and confirm if measurement algorithms will accurately measure the beam even before the experiment is constructed. BeamMaker can help laser engineers, technicians and researchers understand a beam's modal content by calculating results on modeled beams for a better understanding of real laser beam profiles. BeamMaker is to laser beam analysis as a function generator is to an oscilloscope.

BeamMaker producing a synthetically generated Hermite TEM22 beam and displayed in both 2D and 3D

Integrated automatic Help linked into the Users Guide

Touch sensitive Tool tips are available on most all controls, and "What’s This" help can provide additional details. Confused about what something is or forgot how it works, just go to the top right corner and touch the "What’s This" help icon, then click on the control or menu item that you want more info about and you are taken to the explanation within the BeamGage Users Guide.

Multilingual

BeamGage comes with both Japanese and Chinese user interface. Country specific manuals can be downloaded from the ophiropt.com/photonics web site.

BeamGage®-Professional Version

Professional is an upgrade version of BeamGage-Standard that has all of the BeamGage-Standard features plus additional functionality.

Image Partitioning

Partitioning allows the user to subdivide the camera image into separate regions, called partitions, and compute separate beam results within each partition. When using partitioning special results items can be displayed that relate to delta values between the computed centroids or peaks of each partition. Partitioning is useful to enable separate analysis of individual beams when multiple beams impinge on the camera simultaneously. This feature is particularly useful when analyzing multiple fibers in a single bundle.

Shown is an example of the results for partition P2 and its related display frame. Observe that the selected partition is highlighted in RED. The crosshair in each partition is user controlled. The crosshair can be moved to a new position with the mouse or can be numerically positioned using the expanded controls that appear when a partition is created.

Automation Interface

BeamGage Professional provides an automation interface via .NET components to allow customers the ability to build custom applications’ that incorporate the laser beam analysis and processing power of BeamGage. The BeamGage automation interface allows developers to control BeamGage programmatically via a set of “puppet strings” known as the automation interface. The automation interface was developed to provide the ability to base control decisions for a second application on results and behaviors recognized by BeamGage. With this ability users can quickly and efficiently meet their manufacturing/analysis goals with minimum human interaction.

The automation interface was designed to achieve two main goals. First, to allow the BeamGage user to programmatically do what they could otherwise do via the graphical user interface (GUI). Second, to expose stable interfaces to the user that will not change, causing breaks to their dependent code. Interface examples for LabVIEW, Excel and .NET VB are included.

Custom Calculations

If BeamGage-Standard does not have the measurement you need the Professional and Enterprise versions permit the user to program-in their own set of calculations. User defined computations are treated the same as other BeamGage standard calculations.

These custom results are displayed on the monitor, logged with results, and included on hard copy print-outs as if they were part of the original application.

Multiple choices for indication of failed parameters, including TTL pulse for external alarm

Master pass/fail which triggers alarm on any failure

USB signal, beep, stop, and log alarm options

Logging

Video Data Logging Formats: HDF5, ASCII-csv

Results in ASCII-csv

Pictures 2D and 3D in jpg, gif, tiff, bmp, png file formats

Charts in ASCII-csv

Cursor Data in ASCII-csv

Row/Column summed in ASCII-csv

Continuous Logging

Time Interval Logging

Frame Count Logging

Periodic Sampling

Pass/Fail Sampling

Burst Sampling, after a user specified time interval, sample a user specified number of frames

Exporting

Convert frame buffer data to third party format

Export a user specified number of frames from the buffer

Export Image Data: ASCII-cvs

Export Results: ASCII-csv

Export Picture: jpg, gif, tiff, bmp, png file formats supported

Export Cursor Data: ASCII-cvs

Export Row/Column summed: ASCII-cvs

Export Image Data in Aperature

Integrated Help

PDF Operators Manual

Context Sensitive Help

Context Sensitive Hints

Signal Conditioning for Enhanced Accuracy

Spiricon’s patented Ultracal enables more accurate beam measurement and display. Ultracal takes a multi- frame average of the baseline offset of each individual pixel to obtain a baseline accurate to approximately 1/8 of a digital count. This baseline offset is subtracted from each frame, pixel by pixel, to obtain a baseline correction accurate to 1/8 digital count. Spiricon’s Ultracal method retains numbers

less than zero that result from noise when the baseline is subtracted. Retaining fractional and negative numbers in the processed signal can increase the beam width measurement accuracy by up to 10X over conventional baseline subtraction and clip level methods. Spiricon's Ultracal conforms to the best method described in ISO 11146-3:2004

Frame Averaging

Up to 256 frames can be averaged for a signal-to-noise ratio, S/N, improvement of up to 16X (Noise is averaged up to 1/256th [8 fractional bits]). Data is processed and stored in a 32bit format.

Frame Summing

Up to 256 frames can be summed to pull very weak signals out of the noise.

Due to the precise nature of Ultracal baseline setting, (i.e., a retention of both positive and negative noise components) summing of frames can be performed without generating a large offset in the baseline.

Convolution (Adjacent Pixel Averaging)

Choice of 5 convolution algorithms for spatial filtering for both display and calculations. Spatial filtering improves the visual S/N.

Beam Maker®

Beam Maker is a new feature that allows the user to model both Laguerre-Gaussian and Hermite-Gaussian laser beams in various modal configurations. With these models you have verification and validation tools that allows not only OSI but also the end user to verify BeamGage’s basic beam width measurement algorithms. It can also be used to model laser beams with special input conditions such as signal-to-noise, background offset, and bits per pixel resolution. This allows the user to better understand the accuracy of measurements made under both optimum and adverse conditions. This tool provides the user with a method to validate algorithms against current ISO standards and methods. It can also be used to validate third party algorithms by making the output data available for use in third party applications.

Camera Features

Camera features are governed by the capabilities of the various cameras that will interfaced with these software products, and second by which of these camera features are implemented in the software. This section will describe typical camera features supported in the application.

Black Level Control (used by Ultracal and Auto-X and Auto-setup)

Gain Control (used by Auto-X and Auto-setup)

Exposure Control (used by Auto-X and Auto-setup)

User Programmable ROI

Pixel Binning

Pixel Sampling

Bits per pixel setting

External Trigger Input

Trigger Delay

Strobe Output

Strobe Delay

External Trigger Probe

Internal Trigger Probe

Camera related features in the applications

These are features related to but not generally dependant upon the camera design.

Gamma Correction

Gain Correction

Bad Pixel Correction

Lens Applied Option

Pixel scale settings

Magnification settings

Frame buffer settings

Ultracal

Enable Auto-X (auto exposure control)

Perform an Auto-Setup

8/10/12/14/16 bits per pixel

Select Format or ROI

Measure S/N ratio

Trigger, Capture and Synchronization Methods

Capture methods are features related to the application while Synchronization methods relate more to the abilities of the specific camera. NOTE: Frame capture rates are determined by many factors and are not guarenteed for any specific operating configuration.

Trigger modes

CW - captures continuously, see Capture Options below

Trigger-In from laser: Trigger pulses supplied to the camera

Strobe-Out to laser: Strobe pulses output from the camera

Video Trigger: Frame captured and displayed only when the camera sees a signal greater than a user set level

Capture options

Capture options are redefined and are approached in a different manner than older products. The items listed below will allow for all of the previous methods but with more flexibility than ever before.

Results Priority: Results priority will slow the capture rate to be in sync with the computational results and display updates

Frame Priority: Frame priority will slow results and display updating to insure that frames are collected and stored in the frame buffer as fast as possible (replaces block mode)

Stop After: Will collect a set number of frames and then stop (replaces Single-Shot mode)

Periodic: Will collect frame at a programmed periodic rate.

Periodic Burst: Will collect frames in a Burst at programmed periodic rates

Post processing is still available but is done via a different mechanism and is limited to only data file sources.

Video Playback

Video playback, post processing and post analysis

User customizable playback rates

Video file quick pan/search controls

Whole video file playback looping with sub-selection looping

Playback Video produced by logging

Almost all measurements can be performed on video files

System Requirements

PC computer running Windows 7 (64) and Windows 10

Laptop or Desktop

Not all cameras run in all Microsoft OS versions, see camera section for specifics

Multiple choices for indication of failed parameters, including TTL pulse for external alarm.

Master pass/fail which triggers alarm on any failure

USB signal, beep, stop, and log alarm options

Logging

Video Data Logging Formats: HDF5, ASCII-csv

Results in ASCII-csv

Pictures 2D and 3D in jpg, gif, tiff, bmp, png file formats

Charts in ASCII-csv

Cursor Data in ASCII-csv

Row/Column summed in ASCII-csv

Continuous Logging

Time Interval Logging

Frame Count Logging

Periodic Sampling

Pass/Fail Sampling

Burst Sampling, after a user specified time interval, sample a user specified number of frames

Exporting

Convert frame buffer data to third party format

Export a user specified number of frames from the buffer

Export Image Data: ASCII-cvs

Export Results: ASCII-csv

Export Picture: jpg, gif, tiff, bmp, png file formats supported

Export Cursor Data: ASCII-cvs

Export Row/Column summed: ASCII-cvs

Export Image Data in Aperature

Automation Interface (.NET)

Automation Interface with examples in LabVIEW, Excel and .Net VB

Automate launch and termination of the application

Automate start, stop, Ultracal, Auto-X and Auto Setup

Automate the loading of application setups

Automate control of most camera settings

Automate a subset of the application features and controls

Automate the capture of Binary Video Data

Automate the acquisition of aplication results

Automate the acquisition of aplication Images

Integrated Help

PDF Operators Manual

Context Sensitive Help

Context Sensitive Hints

Signal Conditioning for Enhanced Accuracy

Spiricon’s patented Ultracal enables more accurate beam measurement and display. Ultracal takes a multi- frame average of the baseline offset of each individual pixel to obtain a baseline accurate to approximately 1/8 of a digital count. This baseline offset is subtracted from each frame, pixel by pixel, to obtain a baseline correction accurate to 1/8 digital count. Spiricon’s Ultracal method retains numbers

less than zero that result from noise when the baseline is subtracted. Retaining fractional and negative numbers in the processed signal can increase the beam width measurement accuracy by up to 10X over conventional baseline subtraction and clip level methods. Spiricon's Ultracal conforms to the best method described in ISO 11146-3:2004

Frame Averaging

Up to 256 frames can be averaged for a signal-to-noise ratio, S/N, improvement of up to 16X (Noise is averaged up to 1/256th [8 fractional bits]). Data is processed and stored in a 32bit format.

Frame Summing

Up to 256 frames can be summed to pull very weak signals out of the noise.

Due to the precise nature of Ultracal baseline setting, (i.e., a retention of both positive and negative noise components) summing of frames can be performed without generating a large offset in the baseline.

Convolution (Adjacent Pixel Averaging)

Choice of 5 convolution algorithms for spatial filtering for both display and calculations. Spatial filtering improves the visual S/N.

Beam Maker®

Beam Maker is a new feature that allows the user to model both Laguerre-Gaussian and Hermite-Gaussian laser beams in various modal configurations. With these models you have verification and validation tools that allows not only OSI but also the end user to verify BeamGage’s basic beam width measurement algorithms. It can also be used to model laser beams with special input conditions such as signal-to-noise, background offset, and bits per pixel resolution. This allows the user to better understand the accuracy of measurements made under both optimum and adverse conditions. This tool provides the user with a method to validate algorithms against current ISO standards and methods. It can also be used to validate third party algorithms by making the output data available for use in third party applications.

Camera Features

Camera features are governed by the capabilities of the various cameras that will interfaced with these software products, and second by which of these camera features are implemente in the software. This section will describe typical camera features supported in the application.

Black Level Control (used by Ultracal and Auto-X and Auto-setup)

Gain Control (used by Auto-X and Auto-setup)

Exposure Control (used by Auto-X and Auto-setup)

User Programmable ROI

Pixel Binning

Pixel Sampling

Bits per pixel setting

External Trigger Input

Trigger Delay

Strobe Output

Strobe Delay

External Trigger Probe

Internal Trigger Probe

Camera related features in the applications

These are features related to but not generally dependant upon the camera design.

Gamma Correction

Gain Correction

Bad Pixel Correction

Lens Applied Option

Pixel scale settings

Magnification settings

Frame buffer settings

Ultracal

Enable Auto-X (auto exposure control)

Perform an Auto-Setup

8/10/12/14/16 bits per pixel

Select Format or ROI

Measure S/N ratio

Trigger, Capture and Synchronization Methods

Capture methods are features related to the application while Synchronization methods relate more to the abilities of the specific camera. NOTE: Frame capture rates are determined by many factors and are not guarenteed for any specific operating configuration.

Trigger modes

CW - captures continuously, see Capture Options below

Trigger-In from laser: Trigger pulses supplied to the camera

Strobe-Out to laser: Strobe pulses output from the camera

Video Trigger: Frame captured and displayed only when the camera sees a signal greater than a user set level

Capture options

Capture options are redefined and are approached in a different manner than older products. The items listed below will allow for all of the previous methods but with more flexibility than ever before.

Results Priority: Results priority will slow the capture rate to be in sync with the computational results and display updates.

Frame Priority: Frame priority will slow results and display updating to insure that frames are collected and stored in the frame buffer as fast as possible. (replaces block mode)

Stop After: Will collect a set number of frames and then stop (replaces Single-Shot mode)

Periodic: Will collect frame at a programmed periodic rate.

Periodic Burst: Will collect frames in a Burst at programmed periodic rates

Post processing is still available but is done via a different mechanism and is limited to only data file sources.

Video Playback

Video playback, post processing and post analysis

User customizable playback rates

Video file quick pan/search controls

Whole video file playback looping with sub-selection looping

Playback Video produced by logging

Almost all measurements can be performed on video files

System Requirements

PC computer running Windows 7 (64) and Windows 10

Laptop or Desktop

Not all cameras run in all Microsoft OS versions, see camera section for specifics

BeamGage Professional has all of the functionality that BeamGage Standard includes. BeamGage Professional supports all of our beam profiling cameras, includes window partitioning to allow analysis of multiple beams on a single camera, and includes an automation interface written in .NET to push data to your custom applications.

FAQ

How can I use BeamGage Professional with my BeamGage Standard camera system?

If your camera is licensed for Standard, you can add a higher level tier with a software upgrade that can be purchased for a fee. This includes the license code and the software DVD on a per camera basis.

BeamGage Professional allows you to run an automation interface and also allows partitioning of the array to take measurements of multiple beams.

Close

Why does BeamGage have a Windows shield icon on the BeamGage desktop icon, or BeamGage asks me to log on as an Administrator to run the application?

In previous versions of BeamGage it was required to install and operate BeamGage with elevated privileges. The BeamGage 6.1 application core has been over hauled to eliminate the need for operating the software with elevated privileges. You still have to install BeamGage 6.1 from an Administrator level account, but now you can operate it OK with restricted user privileges.

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Can I use my beam profiling camera as a power meter?

A camera is not meant to be a power meter. Even though BeamGage has the ability to measure and display a power/energy reading, you first need to use a NIST calibrated power/energy meter to get a calibrated power or energy meter reading to relate it to a given beam profile that is taken simultaneously. Then you can have a relative power reading come from your BeamGage beam profiling camera system.

If you use an Ophir USB based power/energy meter display you will be able to link this equipment into BeamGage to get a continual feedback from your Ophir equipment into BeamGage to create this connection for you. You need to keep your Ophir sensor in the beam path so it will continually update the related reading to the given beam profile.

Close

Why does the BeamGage cursor location always draw to the middle of a pixel location, even though peaks and centroids, which can be tracked by the cursor, can be computed to sub-pixel resolution?

BeamGage v6.6 corrects the drawing location of the cursor location so it can track sub-pixel resolution. Note; calculation results were not affected.

Close

Why does my laptop computer fan run constantly at high speed, and my laptop battery life is diminished after running and closing BeamGage with a Point Grey camera?

Prior to BeamGage v6.5, when using a Point Grey camera the computer idle states were being disabled in order to maximize camera data throughput, but the disabled idle states were persistent, even after closing BeamGage. Starting with BeamGage v6.5 the idle states are now re-enabled after closing BeamGage, which saves battery power and reduces heating, or the need for high speed fan cooling.

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How does BeamGage produce higher resolution pointing stability than the size of one pixel in the camera?

As BeamGage collects data points to put into the Pointing Stability function it allows you to see the concentration of where the data points are located. These are fitted to a distribution and you can get fractions of data that can produce information that is beyond the precision of the camera pixel.

An example would be if we collect 10 data points that have 5 points in one location and 5 points in a location just 1 pixel away. The distribution will indicate the centroid is in between these two points at 1/2 the pixel size. This is beyond the capability of the equipment, but the distribution mathematically is correct.

Close

What is the largest beam size you can profile?

With the addition of optics, the largest laser beam you can measure is limited by the amount of reduction afforded by the optical setup. With the use of supporting equipment such as beam reducers or CCTV lenses a spatial calibration can be performed, giving the equivalent pixel pitch with the lenses in place. Sometimes an imaging target may be needed to make sure you are focusing the imaging optics to the correct location.

In most applications the beam size is less than 10mm. When a beam gets larger, a reducing telescope can be used to bring it down to a size to fit on the array. Our largest array camera, the L11059, has an array size of 26x39mm.